The town has been terminus of one of the oldest German railway trunks since 1847, adding to the multimodal transport hub between its harbour, federal roads, and a nearby highway (Autobahn) junction.

In the frame of Natural regions of Germany, the western part of Minden belongs to a sequence of geomorphological units (from south to north): the Wiehen Hills, the Lübbecke Loessland, therein the Bastau depression, and the Dümmer Geest Lowland.

The neighbouring towns and communities of Minden are (clockwise from north): Petershagen, Bückeburg (Schaumburg District in Lower Saxony), Porta Westfalica, Bad Oeynhausen, and Hille.

[5] The furthest north-eastern part of East-Westphalia is the driest of the state,[6] though located in a small distance to the sea, caused by the main direction of the cyclones from roughly west to east with its prevailing south-westerly rain-bringing weather fronts.

The forestry use of the considerably inclined Wiehen Hills shows a striking contrast to the nearly woodless loess stripes of the northern foothills as well as north of the Bastau depression.

It remains a matter of discussion whether or not the Minden region was the location of the military camp from where commander Publius Quinctilius Varus began marching to the, for Rome disastrous, Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 9 CE.

[26] At the end of the medieval age the papal legate Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa visited some German church provinces to remedy deficits in pastoral care and clerical administration.

Because French troops had occupied the town twice during the war, King Frederick the Great realized that it could no more be defended in the old manner; thus he gave order to annul Minden's status as a fortress in 1764.

During the Thirty Years' War, Emperor Ferdinand II confirmed the staple right to Minden in 1627, meaning that all passing merchants had to offer their goods for sale for some days.

In the following year Napoleon founded the Kingdom of Westphalia, governed by his brother Jerome Bonaparte as king, and Minden became part of this client state until 1810 as district capital in the Weser department.

Before the French troops abandoned Minden on 3 November 1813 after the disastrous Battle of Leipzig, they blew up some of the arches of the Weser bridge, with the damage replaced for decades by a wooden auxiliary construction only.

[53] Although the German armed forces were restricted considerably by the regulations of the Treaty of Versailles, Minden remained a garrison town of the Reichswehr with the Pioneer Battalion No.

The military units put forward the construction of sporting facilities: a stadium (Adolf-Hitler-Kampfbahn, now Weserstadion), a public open-air pool (now Sommerbad), and a horse racecourse.

Both Walther von Brauchitsch (who organized annual horse tournaments from 1925 to 1927) and Wilhelm Keitel (who succeeded him in the same function until 1929) spent part of their career in Minden.

[61] When the Allied troops were approaching, the Nazi officials were ordered to leave the town to the east or the north; even the police and the firebrigade drew back, but Mayor Werner Holle remained.

The 1st Canadian Airborne Battalion of the 3rd Parachute Brigade came from Bad Oeynhausen in the south, not through the Porta Westfalica gap but over the Wiehen Hills at the pass of Bergkirchen.

The town centre reconstruction adapted largely to the pre-war situation, the previous road system remained, and the destroyed houses were rebuilt in a 1950s style.

[47] On 1 January 1973, the previously separate surrounding communities of Aminghausen, Bölhorst, Dankersen, Dützen, Haddenhausen, Hahlen, Häverstädt, Kutenhausen, Leteln, Meißen, Päpinghausen, Stemmer, Todtenhausen as well as parts of Barkhausen, Hartum and Holzhausen II were incorporated into the town of Minden.

[citation needed] In the 1960s, ongoing problems with the town centre became increasingly urgent, such as high population density, large percentage of low-income persons, houses in poor condition, outdated business premises, unsuitable for pedestrians, and severe shortage of parking lots.

After World War II, Minden's population increased significantly due to migration of expelled persons and refugees, mainly from former eastern territories of Germany.

The coat of arms shows the doubled-headed imperial eagle (Reichsadler) of the Holy Roman Empire on the right, awarded in 1627 by emperor Ferdinand II for support of the town in the Thirty Years' War.

The town awards the prize Kabarett-Förderpreis Mindener Stichling every two years to support literary-political cabarets; the €4,000-prize is sponsored by the Melitta company as well as the local savings bank.

[95][96] The main pedestrian zone in the commercial centre of Minden extends from the market place to the north (Scharn) and then turning rectangular in the Bakers' street (Bäckerstraße) eastward to the Weser.

In the early 2000s the town council decided to remove the sculpture, but caused thereby legal proceedings with the artist; finally the court of appeal confirmed the location at the original place.

[104] The multimodal transport harbours on both Weser and Mittelland Canal are experiencing increasing volume because of the good waterway connections to the seaports of Bremen, Bremerhaven, and Hamburg.

A new container port is in construction to the east of the present Mittellandkanal harbour, the so-called "RegioPort OWL", straddling Lower Saxony, being a seldom example of cross-State planning in the Federal Republic.

Traffic connections by railway, highway, federal routes, and waterways are favourable factors for growing industry and trade with about 3,300 firms and 40,000 employees in regular conditions (2020).

[115] A multitude of economic branches include the chemical, metalworking, electronic, paper, ceramic, and woodworking spheres, located on industrial areas mainly in the west and east parts of the town.

[122] The Harting Technology Group, an electronics company originally founded in 1945, built an administration centre near to a former Prussian barracks area in the Glacis belt; the main locations of production were moved since 1950 to the nearby towns of Espelkamp and Rahden.

The office is responsible for a large zone from the North Sea to north-east Germany including local branches of its 100%-subsidiary, low-price supermarket NP-Markt, as some functions of retailer WEZ (25% ownership).